Present Law Intends To Prohibit Ragging Both On And Off Campus, Committee Drafting Amendments Should Factor This In: Kerala High Court
The Kerala Excessive Court docket in the present day (July 03) requested the Working Committee, constituted to provide options for amendments to the Kerala Prohibition of Ragging Act 1998, to remember the legislature’s intention to ban ragging each inside and out of doors the campus of an academic establishment.
Whereas the phrase ‘academic establishment’ itself isn’t outlined below the Act, the Particular Bench of Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice C. Jayachandran famous that Part 3 contemplates a ban on ragging not simply inside the tutorial establishment but additionally outdoors its premises.
This was after the Director Normal of Prosecution (DG) sought to submit that the establishment can have no position to play when ragging is dedicated outdoors its campus and that penal regulation must be invoked.
The bench nevertheless pointed, “A studying of this provision (Part 3) would point out that the legislature has contemplated to ban the act of ragging as outlined below the Act inside and out of doors the tutorial establishments so long as it falls inside the definition of ragging. The drafting committee, little question, look into the facet.“
The event is available in a PIL moved by the Kerala State Authorized Service Authority (KeLSA) flagging the rising menace of ragging inside academic establishments within the State.
The plea was filed after J.S Sidharthan, a second-year undergraduate scholar on the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences College was discovered lifeless within the males’s hostel washroom at Wayanad’s Pookode village.
The State was directed to represent a Working Committee to border complete Guidelines to curb the rising menace of ragging within the State. Upon the structure of a Multidisciplinary Working Group, it was directed to fill the lacunae within the Kerala Prohibition of Ragging Act 1998 by suggesting amendments and framing Guidelines, to carry a preliminary assembly quickly and devise its plan of motion.
In the course of the course of listening to in the present day, the DG apprised the Court docket that the Committee had submitted two units of drafts and after analyzing the identical, the Residence Division had determined to hunt feedback of the stakeholder departments earlier than continuing additional.
The particular bench has now directed that the drafts be furnished to the Member Secretary of KeLSA and Secretary of the UGC, to hunt their inputs.
UGC counsel urged that the definition of ‘academic establishments’ have to be launched to the Act, and it ought to embrace not simply administrative workplaces and educational blocks but additionally hostels.
KeLSA counsel submitted that the definition should embrace each faculties and faculties.
The case is posted subsequent week for additional consideration.
Case Title: Kerala State Authorized Service Authority v. Authorities of Kerala and Others
Case No: WP(C) No. 8600 of 2025
